Diamond-like-carbon films produced by magnetically guided pulsed laser deposition

We have compared the quality of carbon films deposited with magnetically gu ided pulsed laser deposition (MGPLD) and conventional pulsed laser depositi on (PLD). In MGPLD, a curved magnetic field is used to guide the plasma but not the neutral species to the substrate to deposit the films while, in co nventional PLD, the film is deposited with a mixture of ions, neutral speci es and clusters. A KrF laser pulse (248 nm) was focused to intensities of 1 0 GW/cm(2) on a carbon source target and a magnetic field strength of 0.3 T was used to steer the plasma around a curved arc to the deposition substra te. Electron energy loss spectroscopy was used in order to measure the frac tion of sp(3) bonding in the films produced. It is shown that the sp(3) fra ction, and hence the diamond-like character of the films, increased when de posited only with the pure ion component by MGPLD compared with films produ ced by the conventional PLD technique. The dependence of film quality on th e laser intensity is also discussed.